Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI)

Well this is my first post on this blog. Amarjeet started this blog and this idea intrigued me as well so i got motivated to contribute as well...
Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI), is an NGO based in Maharashtra, founded by a group of scientists and social workers in 1996. The mission of the organisation is to serve as an instrument of sustainable rural development through the application of scientific and technological knowledge. The organization had been involved in several projects many of which have culminated into successful technologies for rural areas. They have fifty projects in areas like Bamboo technologies, rural energy technologies, Nursery technology, Agri Horticulture Technology. They have nearly 25 standardised and field-tested technologies to offer to rural entrepreneurs through their Rural Entrepreneurship Development Centre (REDC).

Their primary ongoing project is Commercialisation of Improved Biomass Fuels and Cooking Devices in India. With a vision to create sustainable rural enterprises based on clean biomass fuels and cooking systems, this project aims to reach out to rural households all over Maharashtra. The project is sponsored by Shell Foundation, UK. According to world health report 2002 indoor air pollution is responsible for 2.7% of the global burden of disease. The project is a step towards solving such a problem by developing and disseminating biofueled clean cooking devices that form a practical and cheap solution for rural households. Current project is an extension of a pilot project run by ARTI from January 2003 to December 2005. According to the website - "At the end of the project period, there were 120 active rural enterprises spread over the state, and during August 2004 to December 2005, these enterprises had collectively sold clean biomass energy cooking products to about 75,000 rural families in Maharashtra." They had established a private limited company, Samuchit Enviro-Tech Pvt. Ltd. (SET) to drive the commercialization of this biogas plant through several NGOs, rural entrepreneurs and Self Help Groups (SHGs) and reach out to about 15,00,000 rural households in Maharashtra and around 50,000 rural households in Gujarat.

The Biogas plant uses only about 1 kg of any sugary or starchy material (such as leftover food, kitchen waste, nonedible rhizomes, seeds, etc) as daily feedstock, to give a regular supply of gas sufficient enough for domestic cooking for around 2 hours. Just 2 kg of such feedstock produces about 500 g of methane, and the reaction is completed with 24 hours. The conventional biogas systems, using cattle dung, sewerage, etc. use about 40 kg feedstock to produce the same quantity of methane, and require about 40 days to complete the reaction. Thus, from the point of view of conversion of feedstock into methane, the system developed by ARTI is 20 times as efficient as the conventional system, and from the point of view of reaction time, it is 40 times as efficient. Thus, overall, the new system is 800 times as efficient as the conventional biogas system. The biogas plant is set up using locally available plastic tanks (used for water storage), and can be installed even in urban homes with limited space.

In addition they are also working towards commercialization of the charring kilns for manufacturing charcoal briquettes, portable steam cooker operated with charcoal and a metallic gasifier stove. An interesting initiative was taken by Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited (IPCL) wherein they invested in a charcoaling kiln and a briquetting machine and ARTI provided the technical knowhow. The leaf litter and woody waste generated on the IPCL campus was used as the raw material to produce more than 900 kgs of charcoal in less than 1.5 months which was then bought over by ARTI at Rs 15/kg. I wanted to get some data about how exactly the end user goes about maintaining it, but am digging out that information (will add post it when I know about it). Look at the below picture to figure out how does it look like.

The guy that you see in this picture is A D Karve. He is a PhD in Botany and he has won numerous awards and currently is the president of ARTI. In addition to that he is also director for numerous organizations related to village development and sustainable technology. The biogas plant was primarily his brainchild.

This Bio Gas plant also won ARTI the prestigious Asden award. You can read more about it here.

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Goli